Abbott plays hardball with tradition

A familiar face in the queue for a mid-afternoon caffeine hit at Aussie’s cafe in Parliament House arrived early yesterday.

Harry Jenkins
, the Speaker, had time on his hands, which were unusually steady for the time of day. Normally on a parliamentary sitting day, approaching 3.30pm, Jenkins would have been close to the end of his tether, presiding over the final minutes of the grinding, 90-minute verbal battle that these days constitutes House of Representatives question time.

Question time yesterday lasted just a few minutes, interrupted initially by an opposition tactical move against the Prime Minister over the
Craig Thomson
affair and then abruptly curtailed by Gillard as payback.

As Labor MPs evacuated the government benches and the opposition howled in protest, the Parliament was a picture of sourness and hostility.

It was a new low in parliamentary standards which have been in a long downward spiral and which has resulted in an almost complete evaporation of goodwill between the parties.

One of the most important practical expressions of the goodwill which is crucial to the effective functioning of the Parliament had been ripped asunder earlier in the day when Opposition Leader
Tony Abbott
cancelled the arrangement known as “pairing".

This is the informal understanding that is reached between the parties each day Parliament sits to allow members to be absent from votes to attend to other pressing matters –either related to their jobs or personal – without disadvantage to either side.

But Abbott argued that, as the integrity of the Parliament was at stake in the Craig Thomson affair, no member should be excused from voting on an opposition motion requiring him to explain himself.

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Abbott would not even agree to allow a representative from either side (in the opposition’s case his predecessor,
Malcolm Turnbull
) to be absent to attend the memorial service in Sydney for the artist
Margaret Olley
, a long-time friend of Turnbull’s.

But Abbott’s real purpose had little to do with the Parliament’s integrity and everything to do with political opportunism.

The reality is that Abbott senses that he is on the brink of realising the goal he set from the day Gillard outmanoeuvred him and secured the support of cross-bench MPs to form a minority Labor government – to bring it to an early end. Thomson’s political demise would force a by-election, which would almost certainly see the government fall.

Since the election, Abbott has pursued an utterly ruthless political strategy aimed at the destruction of the minority government. He has refused to accept its legitimacy and succeeded in persuading a large chunk of the electorate that the minority government is a disaster and should not be allowed to run its full term.

Government business manager
Anthony Albanese
accused Abbott yesterday of “the longest dummy spit" in Australian political history and of being a reactionary prepared to do anything to become prime minister.

The political reality, of course, is that Gillard has been extraordinarily generous in the amount of ammunition she has handed to Abbott to shoot holes in her legitimacy. But a political system drained of all goodwill is ultimately unworkable. We need only look at the example of the US Congress. Abbott’s trashing of an important convention is a dangerous step down the US road.